the things we do, and what happens after
by mcfuz
Summary: Maybe she won't ever find Percy and will remain wandering in the endless darkness until all the ichor seeps from her body and she is but an empty shell. / In which Calypso follows Percy and Annabeth into the darkness of Tartarus to save them, and everything that happens afterwards. The sort-of sequel to 'a love affair, of sorts'. Percabeth.


**the things we do, and what happens after**

* * *

The breeze is cool on Calypso's face as she waits for her heroes to come. They're late, but she has all the time in the world. She has ever since Percy set her free.

Footsteps slice through the silence and she stills suddenly, as if she were spinning and has ground to a halt. Voices then reach her ears, and soon a motley collection of teenagers appears in the distance, the sun glinting off their unsheathed swords. Calypso waits for them to join her.

When they do, they stare in confusion, and she stares right back, counting them and coming up short. One, a boy with golden hair; two, a girl with skin like coffee. Three, a girl so beautiful Calypso feels ashamed. Four, five and six, a trio of males with power she can feel radiating from them like heat from the sun.

But.

But.

"Who are you?" the first boy whispers. There is a scar on his lip and his sword is imperial gold.

"Where is Percy Jackson?" Calypso's voice is faint and the heroes do not hear.

"Who are you?" The pretty girl repeats the question, but her charmspeak holds no sway.

"Where is Percy Jackson?" Calypso feels her heart shredding like paper in the wind.

"Who are you?" Louder, more insistent, and spoken by the boy with fire in his eyes and a smile in his soul. He reminds her of Percy, and it is to him alone she answers.

"I am Calypso. Where is Percy Jackson?" Her question is finally registered, and the blonde boy shifts uncomfortably. "Where is he?"

"He – and Annabeth. They fell." Calypso cannot breathe. "Into Tartarus."

It is all she can do to ask when.

"Eleven days ago. I'm – I'm sorry."

She nods. Thinks and blinks.

Knows what she must do.

"Then I must bid you farewell, my heroes. I hope to meet again, in this lifetime or the next." And then she is gone, running fleet-footed across the grass while tears cloud her vision and all she can hear is the rush of the ocean and the cries of her own heart.

* * *

Tartarus is bitter and made of liquid darkness. It is neither hot or cold, loud or quiet, but a stifling fear pervades every particle of the air Calypso breathes, ripping the life from her with forcefully insistent fingers. But she is a Titan. She will not give in.

Shadows move on the edges of her vision. Smoke dances behind her eyelids when she closes them. There is no escape.

And there are the monsters, but they keep their distance from her. Perhaps they can sense a kindred spirit – one long ago exiled, shunned for being an enemy of the gods. Or perhaps they are waiting, poised for the perfect moment to strike.

Calypso does not care. She doesn't care about much anymore.

Only Percy matters now. She must find him.

* * *

Maybe days have passed. Maybe years.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Maybe she won't ever find Percy and will remain wandering in the endless darkness until all the ichor seeps from her body and she is but an empty shell.

* * *

But.

But.

In the ocean of midnight before her, in the wasteland stretched out by her feet, she can feel something. Can feel some_one_. And all of a sudden her feet are moving and she's flying across the floor of hell, because she knows she has to catch up quickly or it will be too late for them all. Shadows snap at her heels like rabid dogs and there is a shuttering sound in her mind, _clicky-clicky-click_.

But then.

But then.

A figure in the distance. Two figures. Running for their lives, but Calypso is a Titan, and she can outrun the sun.

They meet by a spiral of rock bursting from the ground, pointing straight up to Olympus like an accusing finger. At first the two people huddled at the monument's base are almost unrecognisable, cloaked as they are by ashes and dust. But those green eyes are unmistakable even in the gloom of Tartarus, and Calypso feels like singing.

She approaches them.

"Percy." His name is honey on her tongue. "Percy." His name is the stars she can no longer see. "Percy." His name is the world in her hand, on her lips, down her throat.

He looks up and something like a smile cracks across his upper lip. "Calypso?"

She falls to her knees. "I am here, my hero. I am here."

* * *

They use the nectar in her satchel to heal the girl Annabeth's wounds. By the time they are done, the bottle is near empty and the patient is smoking. Calypso laments the loss of the drink, but then Percy smiles at her, and it is worth it.

While Annabeth rests, Calypso and Percy stand guard. His sword shines even in darkness this absolute.

"You must sleep, Percy Jackson."

He gives her a strange look. "Why are you here, Calypso?"

She doesn't answer for a long time. She thinks about Percy, and she thinks about Ogygia. She thinks about all the heroes that have washed up on her shores over the millennia, and she wonders if, given the chance, she would have done the same for them as she is doing for Percy now.

Thinking about it, she isn't so sure she would, because there's something about Percy Jackson that she can't quite grasp, and that something makes her heart flutter in a way it hasn't since Odysseus.

"For you," she answers simply, and he nods, and the two of them watch the rise and fall of Annabeth's chest and wonder if they'll ever see sunshine again.

* * *

The Doors are close. She can feel it. Perhaps Percy and Annabeth can too, for their spines straighten, their eyes brighten and their hearts hold new purpose.

"How long?" Annabeth croaks, but Calypso doesn't answer, instead just taking her hand and setting off at a run. Percy follows behind. Their footsteps are heavy and loud but that doesn't really matter anymore.

And then, like a light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness around them begins to pale. A slice of sunshine appears, shivering like a single star in the cosmos. They can hear the monsters around them, of course, but the light seems to drive them away, at least for the moment, and it is as if all the stars have aligned because surely their journey is over, surely Tartarus will soon be nothing but a distant memory swamped in the sands of time.

But then.

But then.

The ground begins to fight back. Though there are no trees in the depths of hell, there are roots more ancient than the gods themselves, and it is these that snake up through the black dirt and grasp for flesh to hold and destroy. Calypso dodges them easily, and Percy hacks away those he cannot, but Annabeth is injured and growing weaker with each step she takes and it is not long before she is caught.

With a cry, the girl goes down and the ground weeps tears of her blood. Percy doubles back to help, but it is all too much for just him and Anaklusmos.

Calypso stands suspended, looking back and hoping.

But her hopes are unfounded, and Percy falls to his knees, and roots bind him to Gaia like spider silk binds flies to a web.

Calypso finds her feet and her voice and runs to save him.

She is a Titan and cannot be touched. Her small dagger flies like quicksilver as she frees first Percy then Annabeth, and heaves the latter across her thin shoulders. They run like Gaia herself is chasing them, and in a way, she is.

They reach the Doors. Calypso feels a cool breeze on her face and the tears in her eyes freeze with the feeling.

But.

But.

The Doors. They have to be closed.

From the inside.

By this time Annabeth has regained consciousness and Percy helps her to her feet. The two take in the situation before them and the smiles slide of their faces like wax from a candle.

"No," Percy says, and his shoulders bow with the effort of keeping himself upright. After so much, after everything they've been through, to fall at the final hurdle? To realise they were never meant to escape Tartarus in the first place?

It is unbearable.

Annabeth voices their fear. "One of us has to stay behind," she says, and Calypso chokes back a laugh.

"My heroes," she whispers. Percy and Annabeth turn. She spreads her arms wide. "This is why I am here."

* * *

It takes a long moment for her words to compute, and Calypso knows when they do because Percy's face grows haggard and hard. "No."

"Yes."

"No." Percy draws his sword. "I won't let you." His hand is shaking.

"My hero," she sighs. "You have fought Titans and gods, but still you will not beat me. Because in your heart, you know that this is what I must do, and so you cannot hope to win." _I'm sorry_, she adds silently, his expression breaking her heart in two.

"But – Tartarus," he protests weakly, his sword already hanging limply in his grip.

"I have had enough of paradise, Percy Jackson. You should know that all too well. Now go." Annabeth reaches out and takes Percy's hand, pulling him along behind her. She and Calypso share a long, silent look before Annabeth nods and slips through the veil between hell and the rest of the world. "I will see you again, I promise," Calypso calls, but there is no-one there to answer her.

Percy is gone.

She sets her shoulders and takes hold of the edge of the Doors. It feels slippery beneath her grasp, like liquid, and she can feel her body weakening with just that single touch, the Doors sapping the strength from her to feed itself. She takes a long, steadying breath and heaves.

It is the heaviest thing she has felt, like holding all the shadows and fears of the world in the palm of her hand and trying to lift them.

Her hands bleed golden ichor as she pulls.

All she can taste is the salt of her tears.

Calypso pulls, and the Doors shudder, and Tartarus shivers, and the sliver of sunshine quivers. She pulls again, and the Doors give, swinging slowly and silently forward until they close with a clang.

Calypso falls to her knees and succumbs to the tide of exhaustion pulling her out to sea.

* * *

They say hell is supposed to be hot, and they're right, because her whole body is on fire and she feels pain like she never has before.

* * *

Days go by and she has to remind herself of whom and what she is because she can feel Tartarus pulling her very essence to pieces.

She tells herself that Kronos endured this for as long as she endured Ogygia, so surely she can too, but then she thinks, _what is Ogygia? It sounds so familiar, but I have no memory of the place._

But then she remembers her island, she remembers her life, and she remembers the promise she made to Percy. She finds the strength to carry on.

* * *

She can see the stars. They are dim and fogged with city pollution, but they are there and shining and she cannot believe she has made it.

She has made it.

She has made it.

* * *

Tartarus spit her out across the other side of the world and it takes her another month or so to reach the United States, then a week until she finds herself in New York. There is something different about the place, she thinks. Perhaps it is only that the buildings are bigger, or that the trees are greener, or that the accents are weaker, more diluted with the rest of the world. It makes her uneasy, but she supposes that many years must have passed since she was last in the mortal realm so of course things would be different.

But her unease doesn't leave her.

She is wandering in Central Park a day or so after arriving at the JFK airport, trying to remember the way to Percy's apartment, when a voice in her ear says, "Well, well, Calypso, long time, no see."

She spins and finds herself face to face with one of her oldest friends. "Hermes," she breathes, and sighs with relief. Hermes can help. Hermes will help. "I must find Percy Jackson."

The god's smile hitches slightly. "You've been gone a long time, Calypso," he begins gently, but she cuts him off.

"I know I have, my lord, but please, where is Percy Jackson?" She almost laughs in anticipation.

Hermes shifts from foot to foot. Something rings in his pocket and he doesn't answer it. "You've been gone a long time," he repeats, his voice soft.

"Why do you keep saying that? I know, but I beg you, Percy -"

"Percy Jackson has been dead for over one hundred years, Calypso." She blinks. She must not have heard him right. She cannot have heard him right. "I am sorry."

* * *

Hermes takes Calypso to Annabeth and Percy Jackson's graves. They are side by side, their names preserved forever in the white marble. _Our hero_, his tombstone reads.

"My hero," Calypso breathes, and funnily enough, she doesn't cry. All her tears were used up in Tartarus, which now seems like an eternity ago. _One hundred years_.

"They never forgot you," Hermes says after a while, once again ignoring the ringing in his pocket. "They had three children, you know. Two boys and a girl. Her name was Zoë Calypso."

She does not know what to say. _Her name _was, she thinks, and sighs. Zoë Calypso must be long dead now, too, as her brothers would be, and maybe their children also. If they had any.

Calypso suddenly feels very strange standing here in her immortal body, staring at the grave of the person who had once cut her heart out neat and kept it. She thinks that maybe mortality is better than eternal life.

* * *

She refuses Hermes' offer to join him up on Olympus, instead choosing to wander the world that has changed so much. Secretly, she wishes to catch sight of Percy's descendants; though Hermes told her in no uncertain terms that the sixteen surviving relatives of Percy are spread far and wide, and it would be near impossible for her to find them, Calypso wants desperately to at least try.

* * *

She is waiting for the hover train one day - which has long since replaced the subway in all corners of the globe - when she spots a boy sitting by himself on her side of the platform. His hood is up on his sweatshirt and he is half cloaked in shadow, but when he looks up and catches Calypso's gaze, she finds herself staring at the green eyes she knows by heart.

Though the world is loud around her, everything seems to mute, focusing in on the boy who can only be Percy Jackson reborn. She doesn't know much about the systems of rebirth, but even she knows that usually each of the three lives are totally different - it would seem, however, that the gods deemed Percy a special circumstance and gifted him with the same body he had used all those years ago.

Perhaps it is for some greater purpose.

Perhaps it is because Apollo had foreseen Calypso being at this exact hover train station, and sent the Percy-who-was-not-Percy straight to her. The thought gives her palpitations.

Calypso edges over to not-Percy. She sits down on the other side of his bench, surreptitiously glancing over at him whenever she thinks she can risk it.

He is more beautiful than she remembered.

Unfortunately, it seems he is far more astute in this life than he was in his last, because when she next looks over, he is looking back. "Can I help you?" he asks, and his voice is perfection.

"You just remind me of someone," she begins breathlessly. "A friend."

Not-Percy raises his eyebrows. "Right. Well, can you sort of stop staring? It's really creeping me out." He sticks his wireless earphones back in and fiddles with the device in his hand. Calypso is lost for words. She stands.

"Okay," she manages, but not-Percy isn't listening. She takes a deep breath. Maybe the train will be crowded and she'll have to sit next to him. Yes, that will be it.

Content, Calypso turns and takes no more than two steps before a very blonde someone comes barrelling into her, their heads banging with a dim noise like a gong. Calypso staggers backwards and holds back a curse.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the girl is babbling, dusting herself off. "I really should just watch where I'm going, I can be so scatterbrained sometimes -" She continues speaking, but Calypso tunes out, because the girl has looked up and she is Annabeth Chase - or Jackson, or whoever she is in this life - and suddenly it all makes sense. Percy wasn't reborn for her, Calypso - it was Annabeth, it had _always _been Annabeth.

Biting back her tears, Calypso gives a stiff nod and backs away. She watches blankly as not-Annabeth races up to not-Percy and fly-tackles him with a hug. He laughs and hugs her back, calling her Mallory. She grins and calls him Moss.

Moss and Mallory. They already sound made for each other.

When the hover train pulls in to the station, twelve and a half minutes late, Calypso takes the furthest seat from Moss and Mallory as she can. She spends the ride staring into the glass of the window and wondering just who is staring back.

* * *

Years later Calypso is checking the latest news on her iPalm - the latest newfangled device that runs on the body's own energy instead of a battery - and stops dead on a single article.

Percy Jackson's face is smiling up at her. Except that this is Moss O'Flaherty, he is dressed in army fatigues, and it is part of an obituary written to honour a fallen war hero, a loving husband and the father of two little girls. _Dead_, she thinks numbly, and closes her fist, shutting off the small glowing screen.

Another life gone. Only one more to go. But at least she knows he'll be in Elysium again, for where else is there for a hero to end up but Paradise?

* * *

Life moves on and the world grows. Calypso moves from place to place so as not to arouse suspicion, for she looks no older than the day she first left Ogygia, now almost half a millennium ago. She gets visits from the gods time to time, usually Hermes, but sometimes Hephaestus or Hestia as well.

One day, however, there is a knock on her newest house door and she opens it to come face to face with Poseidon.

"My lord," she murmurs, curtseying and letting him inside. "Excuse the mess, I've just moved -"

"I know," Poseidon cuts her off gently, smiling. "I've been watching you, Calypso. We all have." She doesn't have anything to say to that. "Please, sit down," he asks, and she does, mute. Poseidon joins her on the couch and flexes his fingers. He is dressed like he always has been, in a tropical shirt and khaki shorts, for though suits and ties have gone out of fashion, the Hawaiian shirt never has. He sighs. "I think you know why I am here, Calypso."

"Percy."

"Yes. Percy. I take it you are aware he has chosen rebirth?"

"Yes, my lord." She is about to say more but something in Poseidon's face tells her not to.

"Yes. Well, the time is almost here for his third and final life. I suggest that you take a holiday from this place, and go live in Manhattan again for a while. Try 116th Street."

"May I ask why, my lord?"

Poseidon stands and smiles. "You will know when the time comes. Oh - and make sure you buy a two bedroom apartment." He gives her a wink and, before she can move to open the door to let him leave, disappears, the faint smell of brine and sand all that remains behind.

* * *

The next day she has sold her virtually untouched house - for it is highly valued and was snapped up in an instant by a young polygamous man - and buys a room in the coveted Hanging Gardens apartment block on west 116th Street. She moves there three days later and wonders what she has set in motion.

* * *

Though she is a Titan, Calypso has still always had need for a job to pay the bills. She could coerce money from a mortal if she wished, but she doesn't, at least not totally. If she sometimes convinces her employer to give her a pay rise, or borrows some money from the bank and makes sure she doesn't have to pay it back, then all it does is give her a little push in the right direction. It's not stealing, per se; so much as it is a carefully constructed business venture.

So it is that, as soon as she has settled in, she manages to wrangle herself a position in a high-earning company that practically spoon-feeds her money. Life is simple after that, and about six and three-quarter months pass before anything really happens at all.

It is a blustery spring's day and Calypso is heading home from work. She likes walking to and from her apartment and the skyscraper where she spends most of her days, even in the rain, because after spending so long in Ogygia's endless summer she likes the variations of the weather that Manhattan has to provide.

Just before passing the half-way mark on her trek there is a tugging on her shoelace that is quite insistent. Glancing down, Calypso's heart contracts seeing a seated girl who is clearly homeless and begging for help. It is overcast, and the girl waits in the shadows, so it is not until Calypso squats down and looks closer does she realise she is staring at Annabeth, but not Annabeth as she ever imagined would look like.

This Annabeth's face is haggard, and she looks worse than she ever did in Tartarus. Her hair is cut short to the point where it is almost shaven, and her grey eyes are lacklustre.

This Annabeth is broken.

"Please," not-Annabeth whispers. Her voice is rough. "Please. Some change. Please."

Calypso swallows and holds out her hand. "I'll give you more than that," she murmurs. "You're coming home with me." Perhaps it is a testament to just how horrible not-Annabeth's life is, for she takes Calypso's hand without any questions and lets her lead her home.

On the way they only speak two words to each other. Not-Annabeth seems to quiver in the wind, frail like a wraith, and only straining her ears does Calypso hear the word, "Lucy."

She smiles. "Calypso."

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

* * *

Lucy takes the second bedroom in the Hanging Gardens apartment, and Calypso realises that this is why Poseidon had told her to come. To find not-Annabeth and save her.

She rather likes her job as babysitter.

Lucy cleans up nicely. Borrowing some of Calypso's clothing, she is like a new person. It turns out she wasn't always homeless, and can play the piano, cook spaghetti Bolognese without a recipe and iron out all the creases in her (or Calypso's) clothes. She doesn't like talking about her Life Before, as she puts it, and Calypso doesn't pry.

They become fast friends, a far cry from Lucy's first life when Calypso and Annabeth had barely even met.

* * *

As the months pass Calypso finds herself on the lookout for Percy. He must be coming soon, for she now knows that he and Annabeth are eternally bound and they will always find each other, regardless of what lives they are living.

But a year goes by, and then two, and there is still no sign of him.

Calypso tells herself not to worry, but something that feels horribly like anxiety begins to simmer in her stomach and doesn't go away.

Meanwhile, Lucy is blossoming. She has taken a job at the same firm Calypso works for, and pays her rent as well as any other boarder would. Her hair has grown down to her chin and her eyes sparkle like they did in ages past, when she was a daughter of Athena and in love.

But still no Percy.

* * *

The two of them are in the kitchen one day, sheltering from the torrential rain and baking up a storm. Calypso is separating the egg whites from the yolks and Lucy is melting dark chocolate in the pot when the latter speaks.

"I've met someone."

The egg yolk slips through into the mixture and ruins it. Calypso swears in Greek.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah." Lucy sounds ecstatic. "His name's Alistair." _Alistair_, Calypso thinks. With dark hair and green eyes and a contagious grin. It suits him.

"Well, you'll have to invite him over."

"That's what I was going to ask you." Lucy bites her lip, absently still stirring the chocolate. "I wondered if you'd like him to come over with a friend."

Calypso gets a new bowl out and separates her first egg. "A friend?"

"Yeah. Like a double date."

Nothing will ever come of it, but still she smiles. Anything to see Percy again. "Sure. When?"

"Tonight."

"So that's why we're cooking then, is it?" Without waiting for an answer, Calypso laughs. "All right. Full steam ahead, I suppose."

She's separating her last egg when arms are thrown about her and crush her in a hug. The yolk slips through.

"_Lucy_."

"Sorry. But thanks."

* * *

It is silly, Calypso decides. All these clothes. Back on Ogygia, or even before, all she wore was the same simple white tunic. Now there are all these choices, and sometimes it becomes insufferable, like today.

Not that she cares what she wears. It isn't like she is trying to impress Percy - Alistair - or whatever. No way in Hades. He's Lucy's anyway.

But still.

But then.

She throws the dress in her arms across the room along with a scream. Stupid clothes.

* * *

The doorbell rings at six minutes to eight. Calypso and Lucy both rush to open it. Two men stand in the doorway, one smiling, one looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here.

The smiling boy is blonde with blue eyes and reminds Calypso of the hero long ago who told her Percy had fallen into Tartarus, except that this one has a long scar down the side of his face and a twinkle in his grin. He must be her date tonight.

And the other boy . . . oh. It is Percy, a million times over, his dark hair messy like always and his green eyes like she remembers from the picture in the newspaper, then the train station before, then the depths of hell before that.

Calypso starts to smile, holding out her hand and beginning to say "You must be Alistair", when Lucy pushes past and throws herself into the embrace of - of the blonde boy.

What?

Calypso's sentence falters and she stares. The world feels like it is splitting at the seams, because this is wrong, all wrong. She steps aside dumbly to let the guests inside.

"Alistair," says the wrong man, that insufferable grin on his face and blue eyes arrogant. "You must be - er - Callie?"

"Calypso."

"Right. Sorry. Pleased to meet you." She takes his hand silently. It is cold. Lucy then leads him into the dining room, leaving her and Percy alone.

Oh, gods. This is wrongwrongwrong.

"Hey," he says quietly, sticking his hands in his pockets. "You okay? You look like you're going to be sick."

Calypso swallows. Stares at the ground, suddenly shy. "Fine," she croaks out.

"Just not your idea of how to spend your evening?" Percy asks, and she can't help but laugh at the smile in his voice. "Me neither. Sorry."

"Don't be." She hangs his coat up on the rack and tries not to stare at the way his dress shirt is slightly soaked and see-through. "I'm Calypso."

"Oh, sorry. Sebastian. It's nice to meet you."

_Sebastian_. "You too."

* * *

Dinner is slightly awkward. It doesn't help that Alistair can never quite get her name right - he calls her Caitlin and Camille and Claudia and everything except Calypso - or that every time Sebastian looks at her she feels like her heart is about to give out, immortality be damned.

Dessert is finally served and Calypso is handing out the bowls when her foot catches on Alistair's outstretched leg and she falls flat on her face. The plate flies from her grip and lands directly in front of Sebastian, smashing to pieces and leaking onto his trouser leg. She leaps up suddenly and drags him to the kitchen, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry -" she begins, but stops when he starts to laugh. It is real, fruity laughter, the kind that's only heard between friends, or lovers, or people in between. Calypso freezes.

"God, and to think I was starting to get bored!" Sebastian says between bursts of giggles, wiping down the ice-cream stain with the heel of his hand. "Don't worry about it. Happens." He gives her a smile that sends her weak at the knees.

"Right," she answers breathlessly, Lucy and Alistair and the remnants of the dinner party forgotten. The world seems to still, and it is as if she is watching in slow motion as Sebastian leans towards her, and she leans toward him, and suddenly they're kissing and her whole body is on fire, and it isn't Sebastian beneath her lips but Percy, her hero, her saviour -

She pulls away, gasping for breath. "I can't."

Percy's brows furrow. _Sebastian's_ brows furrow. She feels trapped, cornered in a time warp she can't escape. It feels so wrong, but it feels so right. Tears build up beneath her lashes.

"You can't?" His voice is heartbreakingly familiar and breathtakingly foreign.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, wiping her eyes under the pretence of scratching her head. She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. "Dinner. You know?"

"Right." Sebastian clears his throat before smiling slightly. "Just dinner."

She doesn't have the heart to tell him it's so much more than that.

They rejoin Lucy and Alistair with profuse apologies and much clinking of wine glasses. The dinner ends on a high note. Lucy kisses Alistair goodbye, sweetly enough to make Calypso feel like she's made a terrible mistake. Sebastian looks like he wants to say something, but doesn't, just nodding and leaving behind him a trail of aftershave.

As the door closes, Lucy turns to Calypso, her eyes wide and shining. "Wasn't that amazing?" she gushes, and then prances off to bed.

Calypso doesn't sleep that night. She sits herself down at the kitchen table with a pocket-knife and slits open each of the pads of her fingers, watching the golden ichor drip out and wishing it were red. When she dabs nectar onto each of the cuts, they heal without a trace.

Without a scar.

* * *

Alistair becomes a frequent visitor to their apartment over the weeks that follow. Lucy becomes utterly besotted with him, singing his praises when he isn't around and kissing him senseless when he is. Calypso feels like a voyeur, and sometimes she wants to slap Annabeth's pretty little face and yell "you belong to Perseus Jackson, damn it, not this poser!"

But she doesn't say it out loud.

About eighteen days after the dinner party (not that she's been counting) her iPalm beeps. She answers.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Calypso. It's Sebastian."

"Oh. Hi."

There's a pause. "I was wondering if you're busy tomorrow night."

She knows she should say _yes, I am, thanks for calling, bye_, but when she thinks of those beautiful sea green eyes, she just can't stop herself. "No, actually. I'm not."

"That's great . . . so my place? Seven?"

"Sure." She hangs up, and it is only later does she realise he never gave her his address, and she never asked for it. She looks him up in the directory instead.

* * *

The next day, Calypso knows she's made a huge mistake. Lucy and Sebastian belong together, Annabeth and Percy belong together, and she can't jeopardise that, as much as she would like to, just to be able to kiss him again, to feel his lips on her and wind her fingers through that soft black hair -

But there is still the matter of Alistair. Alistair the intruder. She feels like there's more to him than meets the eye, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

The morning slips through her fingers like fine grained sand. By a happy stroke of fortune, Alistair comes over for lunch. She has to do something.

When Lucy excuses herself to the bathroom, Calypso edges over to Alistair. They haven't had much to do with each other - she is sure he can sense her animosity toward him - and he still can't get her name right. But there's more at stake here than pride.

"Hey," she murmurs softly. Alistair blinks. "Sorry I haven't been that friendly, it's just . . ."

"Just what?" His voice is all corners and sharp edges. It makes her want to squirm.

"Just," she repeats simply, and then she reaches up, takes his chin in the palm of her hand and meshes her lips with his.

He tastes bitter, like regret.

And then the door creaks open. "Feel like some dessert yet -?" Lucy's question shatters in the air, incomplete. Calypso can almost feel the betrayal in the room, like a coiled snake ready to strike.

Alistair rips himself away. "Lucy - wait -" But she is gone, and all that's left are the bones of a broken friendship lying bloodied in Calypso's hands.

* * *

Sebastian answers the door straight away, but his smile melts as he takes in the red rims around Calypso's eyes and the tearstains marking her cheeks.

"What -?" he begins, then stops as she holds up a hand.

"You need to go over my place and be with Lucy."

"Calypso -"

"You have to. Please. I - I can't." This is tearing her apart from the inside out, for though she did what she had to do to get Alistair and Lucy separated, she feels like the cost is far too much for her to pay.

"Why don't you get Alistair?"

"He can't." Her voice wobbles. "I - I kissed him. And Lucy saw."

The hurt in her hero's eyes is worse than she ever imagined. "Right." His voice is cold. "Fine. Stay here." He gets his coat and leaves the house without another word. Calypso settles herself down onto his couch, lifting the cushions to her face and breathing in his smell of salt and sea.

* * *

Sebastian doesn't come home that night. Calypso falls asleep on the sofa, the blankets askew. When she wakes she is still alone.

* * *

She returns to the apartment only once. Letting herself in with the key, she enters the kitchen and stops dead at the sight of Sebastian and Lucy jammed close together, nursing cups of cocoa and talking quietly. They turn as one to stare at her, and she knows her work here is done.

"I'm leaving," Calypso says before they can speak. "And I'm sorry. For everything."

All she takes with her is one suitcase, containing only two books, a jumper and her wallet. At the door, Lucy is waiting. She wraps her arms around Calypso and squeezes. There are no words. Sebastian doesn't leave the kitchen to even say goodbye.

* * *

Maybe a year or two later she gets a letter in the mail. It is a wedding invitation.

The flames from her lighter eat up the paper hungrily until all that is left is dust in an empty room.

* * *

Poseidon visits Calypso one more time. It is an age later, when it is almost certain Lucy and Sebastian have died and fulfilled their third lives. He comes at dawn, letting himself in and waiting in the kitchen for Calypso to enter. She is not surprised to see him.

"My lord."

He acknowledges her with a nod. "I see that you have done your part."

"I have."

"You will be pleased to know that both Lucy and Sebastian Cook reached Elysium."

She breathes out the breath she didn't know she was holding. "They have reached the Isles, then."

"Yes." He stands. "In the Isles their three lives become one. They know what you did and why you had to do it."

"Thank you, my lord." Her heart feels light, and Poseidon gives her a measuring stare.

"No, Calypso. Thank_ you_."

He is gone before she can smile.

* * *

Sometimes she sits alone on a sandy beach, remembering back all those years ago when Percy Jackson fell out of the sky and changed her life forever. She remembers finding him in Tartarus and the joy on his face when he recognised her. She remembers meeting him at the train station and staring into those green eyes that held her whole world inside. She remembers kissing him, and the way fire raced through her body like she was made of gasoline.

The memories blur together until she cannot distinguish one life from the others. She remembers kissing him in the depths of hell, and watching Moss and Lucy embrace, and reading about Sebastian's honourable death as a soldier. She remembers Percy's eyes, and his lips, and the way he smelt like the sea and tasted like her tears.

Calypso lies alone in the dark, looking up at the stars. She sees a Huntress running across the sky, bow in hand. She sees a million possibilities written in the heavens, a million lives she has never known. She sees the world in the cosmos, and when she closes her eyes, she can taste Percy's kiss all over again.

She thinks she might be going mad.

She thinks she might be dying.

She thinks maybe she doesn't want to be immortal anymore.

She thinks of Ogygia, those white shores of home, and misses them with a longing she cannot describe. She wonders what would have happened had Percy never washed up on her beach.

She thinks that maybe her life would have been very different.

She thinks that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.

* * *

Calypso falls asleep under the stars and dreams of sunshine.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I contemplated writing a sequel to _a love affair, of sorts_ for a very long time, but I never really knew what I'd write about. And then one night, this story in its entirety came to me. I hope you like it as much as I do, because this is one of my only works that has really touched my heart. Xx

[And yes, Alistair is Luke Castellan reborn. Hopefully you picked up on that.]


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